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So much for one of the genera- the "Substance," so called, of
the Sensible realm.
But what are we to posit as its species? how divide this genus?
The genus as a whole must be identified with body. Bodies may be
divided into the characteristically material and the organic: the
material bodies comprise fire, earth, water, air; the organic the
bodies of plants and animals, these in turn admitting of formal
differentiation.
The next step is to find the species of earth and of the other
elements, and in the case of organic bodies to distinguish plants
according to their forms, and the bodies of animals either by
their habitations- on the earth, in the earth, and similarly for
the other elements- or else as light, heavy and intermediate.
Some bodies, we shall observe, stand in the middle of the
universe, others circumscribe it from above, others occupy the
middle sphere: in each case we shall find bodies different in
shape, so that the bodies of the living beings of the heavens may
be differentiated from those of the other elements.
Once we have classified bodies into the four species, we are
ready to combine them on a different principle, at the same time
intermingling their differences of place, form and constitution;
the resultant combinations will be known as fiery or earthy on
the basis of the excess or predominance of some one element.
The distinction between First and Second Substances, between Fire
and a given example of fire, entails a difference of a peculiar
kind- the difference between universal and particular. This
however is not a difference characteristic of Substance; there is
also in Quality the distinction between whiteness and the white
object, between grammar and some particular grammar.
The question may here be asked: "What deficiency has grammar
compared with a particular grammar, and science as a whole in
comparison with a science?" Grammar is certainly not posterior to
the particular grammar: on the contrary, the grammar as in you
depends upon the prior existence of grammar as such: the grammar
as in you becomes a particular by the fact of being in you; it is
otherwise identical with grammar the universal.
Turn to the case of Socrates: it is not Socrates who bestows
manhood upon what previously was not Man, but Man upon Socrates;
the individual man exists by participation in the universal.
Besides, Socrates is merely a particular instance of Man; this
particularity can have no effect whatever in adding to his
essential manhood.
We may be told that Man [the universal] is Form alone, Socrates
Form in Matter. But on this very ground Socrates will be less
fully Man than the universal; for the Reason-Principle will be
less effectual in Matter. If, on the contrary, Man is not
determined by Form alone, but presupposes Matter, what deficiency
has Man in comparison with the material manifestation of Man, or
the Reason-Principle in isolation as compared with its embodiment
in a unit of Matter?
Besides, the more general is by nature prior; hence, the
Form-Idea is prior to the individual: but what is prior by nature
is prior unconditionally. How then can the Form take a lower
rank? The individual, it is true, is prior in the sense of being
more readily accessible to our cognisance; this fact, however,
entails no objective difference.
Moreover, such a difference, if established, would be
incompatible with a single Reason-Principle of Substance; First
and Second Substance could not have the same Principle, nor be
brought under a single genus.
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